Saturday, June 21, 2014

While the world and especially the US is trying to negotiate
a quick fix with Iran to get helpin
containing the violent attack of ISIS into Iraq and when Israel is seen more and
more on the wrong side of peace, suddenly three Israeli teenagers disappear. I
would never approve of kidnapping, but I can’t help but think, how convenient
for Netanyahu. Of course, Netanyahu blames Hamas and he may be right.
But why would Hamas do such a stupid thing, especially right now? They certainly have not forgotten the disproportionate
military poundings by Israel
any time there is a Palestinian response to Israel’s occupation.Hamas well remembers the “war” on Gaza five
years ago which killed over 1400 men, women and children, destroyed 22,000
buildings, including, mosques, schools, hospitals, public works and homes. The
death ratio was over a hundred to one.So
why would Hamas risk such atrocities again?But, maybe out of decades of frustration, they did abduct three kids.

Regardless of what happened, Netanyahu is milking it for
every drop of “victimism” he can squeeze out of it.

Marc Ellis, Jewish author and long time activist for peace
and justice writes:

Here we go again. Israel has launched –yet another – full-scale
invasion of the West Bank.This in response to the kidnapping of three
Israelis. Or is this cover for – yet another – collective punishment because
the Palestinians declared – yet another – a Palestinian state?[1]

Three teenagers disappeared while hiking from their illegal
settlement homes. Hopefully they are being treated humanely. They certainly
have the sympathy of the US
media.We know their names, have seen
their pictures on our television screens and in our newspapers. We have watched
their mothers cry and plead for their return every day since June 12th.
What we do not see is the more than 200Palestinians who have disappeared from their homes or the killing of
twenty year old Ahmad Sabarin or the injury of an eight year old little boy in
the name of Israel’s
“search.”

What we don’t hear is the pain of the hundreds of
Palestinian children kidnapped by Israeli soldiers and being held God knows
where for God knows how long.But, one
thing for sure, they are not being treated humanely.

Ziad Abbas wrote:

Although I have been living far
from Palestine
for years and I am now in my forties, I still have nightmares about the Israeli
army invading my house when I was a child and about the first times I was
tortured. That is the reality most Palestinians former prisoners live with for
the rest of our lives.[2]

It seems that Israel has always been threatened
by children.According to the Washington Post, in the first 30 months
of the 1987 intifada, Israeli soldiers shot and killed 159 children. Thousands were beaten. More than 50,000 children were treated for
injuries, including 6,500 wounded by gun fire. “The average age of children killed was ten,” What was their crime? What had they done to
provoke such punishment? Heaving stones, scribbling slogans on walls, or
displaying Palestinian flags. Save the Children concluded that one-third of
beaten children were under ten years old, and one fifth under the age of five.
Nearly a third of the children beaten suffered broken bones.[3]

Ellis says, “Missing Jews are a terrible price to pay. But,
then, the Israeli jails are filled with “missing” Palestinians.[4]

It is hard for me to imagine. I have a warm and comfortable
bed in which to lie down. I have a safe place to sleep. I am reasonably free of
pain, fear and anxiety.However, none of
this would be true if I were a Palestinian living under Israel’s boot.On any night, for any reason, Israeli troops
may break into my home, at any time, usually around 3 o’clock in the morning, tie
my children’s hands behind their backs and deliver them blindfolded, beaten,
frightenedand crying to be locked up in
solitary confinement. According to Defense for Children International-Palestine,
about 500 to 700children are arrested
by Israel
every year. They are immediately separated from other children, allowed no
visits from parents, pastors or even a lawyer. Soiling themselves when not
allowed to go to a bath room simply adds to their humiliation and fear.

Thomas L. Are

I preached for forty three years in the Presbyterian Church before retiring. If anyone would ever refer to me as a Liberation Theologian, I would be pleased. I started blogging several years ago to express my political and religious concern for justice, especially justice for the Palestinians.